- Do you love carrot cake?
Do you love cream cheese frosting?
Then you're gonna love this carrot cake cupcake recipe.
So easy, delicious, moist, perfectly fluffy
and not oily.
Carrot cake should not be oily people.
Hey you're watching Preppy Kitchen where I,
John Kanell teach you how to make delicious
homemade dishes to share with your family and friends.
These carrot cake cupcakes are gonna whip up in a snap,
and they are delicious too,
so let's get started.
First off, let's shred our carrots.
Actually, first off, toast your nuts.
If you haven't toasted your nuts,
pop them into the oven on a little sheet tray,
ten minutes 350 and you're gonna be golden.
So will the nuts, they'll be fragrant and delicious,
it's always a plus to toast your nuts.
Now we're gonna shred our carrots and notice
I'm using the fine shredder, you don't have to
if you don't have one, but I like it best
especially for cupcakes.
Okay, we want to have 1/2 a pound,
226 grams or about 2 cups of shredded carrots
using a scale, but a cup is fine too.
Shred shred shred.
Do be careful with that shredder.
I have cut myself so many times with something like this,
but almost never with a sharp knife.
These are the most dangerous tools in the kitchen.
Mark my words.
Let me know in the comments if you've had a knuckle scrape.
It's not fun.
One big carrot, okay, we're about halfway there.
I'm making these cupcakes as a special treat for the boys.
What could be cuter than
carrot cake cupcakes for the babies,
and as an added bonus, I've had a ton of requests
for this video after my carrot cake video,
which you can click up here for.
That cake is a muah amazing, delicious.
You've gotta try that too.
This is not the proper shredding form by the way.
I'm shredding to camera.
Normally it should be the other way around.
Just about exactly two pounds, 228 grams.
Set this aside and onto the dry ingredients.
For the dry ingredients, we're gonna add this
all into a big bowl and I'm using a sifter
and a scale but, not absolutely necessary.
It's just my favorite thing to do.
Alright, one and a quarter cups or 150 grams of
all-purpose flower. In you go, okay.
A teaspoon of salt.
I know it kinda seems like a lot of salt,
but it's going to balance everything out,
and be so good.
One leveled teaspoon of baking soda.
A leveled teaspoon of baking powder.
Lots of leavening.
And now for the spices.
This makes the cupcake.
So you don't have to use all the spices,
don't run to the store if you don't need to but,
this is my all time favorite list so here it goes,
tighten my apron for this one.
One quarter teaspoon of cinnamon.
A quarter teaspoon of ginger, in you go.
Ooh, a quarter teaspoon of cardamom.
I know I've said this every single time but
it's so aromatic and good I think,
Next time I have to level up
and get some cardamom pods and then
microplane them, that is the ultimate and freshness, okay,
one quarter teaspoon.
And last but not least, a quarter teaspoon of all-spice.
You can let me know in the comments,
if I'm missing a spice.
I am very interested.
I will always add another spice if you tell me to.
So, sift it up, and now whisk it up.
There we go.
The scale is done, thank you for your service.
Dry ingredients are done, and now it's time
for the wet ingredients.
Okay, so for the wet ingredients,
we're going to use one third of a cup,
careful, of veggie oil, what is that, 80ml.
My pet peeve, which you know if you watch this channel,
is an oily carrot cake, bleh, why would you do that,
it's like taking a perfectly wonderful cake and just
went psh into the garbage.
Don't make your cakes oily when they don't have to be.
You can get moisture in other ways.
We're a little bit of veggie oil,
and then for the rest of the moisture,
we're gonna use one third of a cup of sour cream,
you know I love it.
A little sour cream fixes everything.
And then one third of a cup of apple sauce.
This is gonna be my snack.
I love apple sauce.
Don't tell anybody.
Apple sauce and sour cream, hello, that is the best
side for, like cheese blintzes right.
One half of a cup of white granulated sugar.
One third of a cup of you know packed ish brown sugar.
Here you go.
And a nice splash or teaspoon 5ml,
measure exactly of a good vanilla.
And wait, what's this, two eggs,
I almost forgot I was gonna get ready.
Two eggs, in you go.
It's preferable if everything is room temperature,
or as close to room temperature as possible.
You just don't want to put iced cold things into the oven,
it's not a good time.
It makes baking happen in a less even way,
and things don't incorporate as nicely either.
This can lead to a lot of awkward moments
in the kitchen, where someone's like "should I put
this away?" "don't touch my butter, it needs to be
room temperature."
Mash this up a bit.
This is the part that kids will love by the way.
Mashing it and mixing, and then just whisk it up nicely.
That apple sauce, that sour cream, and the oil,
as well as those egg yolks,
are gonna give us a lot of moisture,
which is just plain delicious.
Wah.
Okay that's good.
Now we're ready to assemble.
Get this batter together.
This easy batter is almost done.
So let's pour the wet into the dry.
Get all that in there.
Don't waste anything.
We're gonna mix this until almost combined,
not until fully combined.
You'll see why in a moment.
Couple lumps in there, it's no problem because
we're gonna fold in the rest of the ingredients.
What is a carrot cake cupcake without carrots?
Cake cupcake? It doesn't make any sense.
Alright, in you go.
Freshly grated carrots.
And of course, one half of a cup of chopped toasted walnuts.
Fold them in.
The deal is that we don't wanna over activate the gluten
in that flour.
We're not making bread,
we're making soft tender cakey cupcakes,
not bready tough cupcakes.
If you over mix ingredients for a cake or cupcakes,
the gluten can make the cake contract,
and become condensed after the bake when it cools down,
which is not fun because it comes out of the oven
you're like "oh it's amazing", then afterwards it shrinks
down and it's kinda like not as nice,
and you're like "this is less amazing", disappointing.
This is all folded in.
If you wanted to, if you are that person,
you could also add in like half a cup,
two thirds of a cup of raisins as well
if that makes you happy.
You could also sub out some of that apple sauce,
for, little pineapple pieces,
if you like pineapple in your carrot cake.
I happen to, if you do as well,
you can let me know in the comments.
I'm always curious how many people like
certain ingredients like pineapple.
Okay.
This is ready to go into our cupcakes,
so let's get them out.
So now we're gonna pop our cupcake papers in here.
I'm using plain white,
but you could use whatever strikes your fancy.
I have so many cupcake papers in my kitchen,
but I almost often use plain Jane white,
I don't know why.
The best way in my personal experience to get batter
into the cupcake paper nice and neat,
is using a scoopy, trigger ice-cream scooper.
So, in you go, and I'm gonna try and fill these
like about three quarters of the way up.
It's always tricky giving an exact serving for cupcakes
in your add recipe because your cupcake papers
could be a bit bigger a bit smaller,
maybe you're filling them a bit less,
or a little bit more and it can you know,
change plus or minus three cupcakes.
It's kinda crazy.
Let's see how many we get for today.
In you go.
Nice and neat, and it looks like we're gonna get exactly
12 cupcakes, amazing.
We're gonna pop these cupcakes into the oven now
and it's set at 375.
A nice initial blast of heat will wake them up but then,
you're gonna reduce the temperature to 350
after five minutes,
and cook them an additional 12 minutes,
till they're nice and springy in the center.
In you go.
While these cupcakes are baking up,
we can make our frosting delicious, amazing,
cream cheese frosting.
It is, the best thing ever.
Okay so, one half of a cup, 113 grams of unsalted
room temperature butter.
Eight ounces or 226 grams of room temperature
cream cheese.
Cream if up.
Whisk attachment.
Just get it nice and mixed.
Lock, and plug it in of course too.
Beep.
Now, mix it up.
While it's mixing, add in a pinch of salt.
One pinch.
And then, you will always be scraping the bowl down.
Always.
Nobody likes the unmixed nonsense at the bottom.
Now, one last mix to finish creaming it up.
Now that it's creamed up,
I can add my confectioner sugar.
I have a little bit under two cups,
so it's about one and three quarters cups of
confectioner sugar here.
And I sifted it up ahead of time because,
you know what sifting looks like.
Dump it in.
Say a little, a little thought that it won't be messy.
And then, we're gonna mix on low.
Actually, and then, I'm gonna mix it by hand just a bit.
Just give it a heads start.
Now we can continue mixing, on low.
Drizzle in about a teaspoon of vanilla.
Then we can increase the speed.
Mmm.
That cream cheese is such magic.
It has a different consistency,
it's kinda more,
I don't know pliable kind of amazing cheese like
consistency, I don't know how to say it, but,
it comes together really really quickly.
Okay, mix mix mix.
Look at that, do you see this consistency?
(chime)
My cupcakes are done.
Perfect timing.
But they have to cool down before we decorate them,
so don't get too excited.
My cupcakes are cooled and smell amazing by the by,
and I've transferred the frosting into a few
piping bags with different tips,
and we're gonna talk about that.
First off the classic just like nice swirl.
I'm using my second favorite tip, and 846.
It's a large closed start tip,
but any start tip will work and you could even use
a round tip for this as well.
Just, get your cupcake.
Get that frosting, and pipe a swirl and build it up.
That's it, classic, clean, delicious, and,
it's just like a perfect bite.
You know how I like to eat my cupcakes,
and that's as a sandwich.
But now, for the fun part, so
I was thinking about this recipe and I'm like,
hmm what would be a fun way to decorate these cupcakes?
I was like little buttercream carrots.
Let me show you what I came up with.
First we're gonna create a little frosting base,
I'm using a what is this an 808 tip, 809 tip,
it's a large round tip.
You could use a 1A whatever you want,
even snip the tip off a piping bag.
Create a flat base,
and if you want you can smooth it out a little bit,
just use a little knife,
and now we're gonna pipe an easy breezy buttercream carrot.
If you're doing some serious decorating,
you might want to add in
a little bit of extra powdered sugar.
So, for the colored frostings, I have orange here,
it's the same buttercream, but I just added
like another teaspoon or two of sugar folded it in
and it made it more stiff.
This is a number 10 round tip.
It's a smaller, kinda like medium small round tip.
Just pipe a carrot.
This is the fun part.
You're starting with the head of the carrot,
and you're ending at the base, so, pipe,
and then trail off like that,
and you can do another one too.
All you have to do is stop squeezing
the bag as you're pulling the edge out
and it works like a charm.
Now for the leafy part,
I'm using a small leaf tip,
this is a 349,
but any smaller leaf tip will work.
It doesn't have to look perfect or anything.
Carrots have messy leaves on top.
Look how cute and easy that was.
If you want your leaves to be more perky,
a little bit more sugar onto them that's all you have to do.
So, let me know which you prefer,
the cute little buttercream carrots,
or the classic swirl?
I am totally torn.
But what I'm about to tear into right now,
is this cupcake.
(laughs)
That wasn't planned, I just came up with it.
Alright so, paper off, rip it apart,
sandwich it up, and look at this delicious,
amazing, treat.
Oh my gosh.
Before I bite into this cupcake,
if you like this recipe, check out my cupcake playlist.
All my favorite cupcakes, every flavor,
including carrot,
and you've gotta find one that you like,
if not all of them.
Okay but now, it's time for a bite.
Much needed happiness brought into my life
at this moment by this cupcake,
oh my gosh it is amazing.
It is so moist, not oily,
and it's delicious I love the spices.
Ahh.
If you like this video,
hit that like button and subscribe
and I'll see you in the next video.